Homemade guns, like the one police say was used in a downtown Saskatoon shooting on Wednesday, are rare but potentially deadly and simple to make.

The president of the Saskatoon Wildlife Federation said rather than seeing homemade guns from scratch, it's more common that existing firearms are illegally modified so they are easier to hide.

A homemade gun may “have many components from a legitimate firearm that was either stolen or possibly smuggled,” Robert Freberg said. “Or it may have actually been in possession of somebody that didn’t know how to dispose of it properly and sold it at a garage sale or something.”

The federation has shooting ranges and offers firearm safety courses. It's also where police train for incidents like Wednesday's shooting in downtown Saskatoon that left a suspect injured.

Police say the suspect fired a homemade gun at officers around 3 p.m. after a report of a man breaking a vehicle’s window on the 200 block of Fourth Avenue South. Police tried using Tasers and a beanbag gun before they shot him in the shoulder. He was sent to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

Saskatoon police often come across replica or imitation firearms — BB guns — but seeing improvised guns, like the one in Wednesday’s shooting, is less common, according to police spokesperson Const. Ryan Ehalt. Officers who responded initially thought the suspect was holding a pipe, but then it was fired at police.

“This is the only known incident this year, that I am personally aware of, where an improvised firearm has been seized as part of investigation,” Ehalt wrote in an email to CTV News.

Homemade guns may be rare, but they can be simple to make.

“I think you could make a firearm almost out of anything,” Freberg said.

There are countless videos with instructions on how to create homemade guns. Some use common items and say it takes only minutes to make. Most of the homemade guns from scratch shoot regular ammunition.

“They're very deadly and (if) you shoot somebody with them, depending on where they're hit, or so forth, it’s a catastrophic result,” Freberg said.

He warned the public of homemade guns and encouraged people to report all homemade, illegal or unsafely stored firearms. He said while guns have a devastating impact on people’s lives, most who own guns are law-abiding citizens who use them for sport.